


Anywhere You Go

by livrelibre



Category: AnyBand
Genre: Character of Color, Chromatic Character, Chromatic Source, Dark Agenda Challenge, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 21:31:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livrelibre/pseuds/livrelibre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Music brought them together, music made them fight, music saved them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anywhere You Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fallbright](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallbright/gifts).



> Many belated thanks to hl and musesfool/Victoria P. for superfast betas! All remaining mistakes are my own. And also to ranalore for the pimping post for Anyband.

> "The Anyband Four were instrumental in toppling the State and are considered some of the most famous leaders of the resistance. However, who were they really? Only fragments of declassified information have been recovered from the State files and much information from before the institution of the State has been destroyed. However, through information found in never before seen official documents, State files, and interviews from the time of the fall, we have been able to trace the rise of these heroic leaders from their school days to the dark times of the State to the formation of the powerful TPL resistance movement and the eventual toppling of the regime and the turbulent days after. " —From _A Brief History of the Anyband Four_

 

BoA and Bora met in third year. Bora was alone practicing in the music room—the headmaster had said the music teacher had been delayed (which, even then, Bora understood had something to do with the checkpoints and the vaguely scary guards in black uniforms). But Bora wasn't a baby and she could practice just fine on her own. She dutifully tackled the endless scales, then the Bach. After about an hour of painstaking practice, she stopped for moment and let the sounds settle into her bones. Bach was fine, but kind of boring after awhile, following all the regimented notes in lines. She tilted her head to the window and plinked out some notes, imitating the birds out the window, which led off into what her mother called her 'flights of fancy,' an improvised swirl of notes that trailed into a lullaby her mother used to sing her to sleep.

She was startled when a voice joined her suddenly, taking up the lullaby. It was a light but full voice, one of the best she had heard, including her mother's (who had studied at the conservatory), but she didn't stop playing until the end of song. When she turned around, there was BoA. BoA stood there, school tie askew and skirt rucked up, as unlike Bora's neatly pressed uniform as two identical outfits could be, and just looked at her, bold and challenging. This was pretty much the look BoA always had on her face, like she wanted to know what the world wanted to make of it. They regarded each other warily for a minute, until BoA broke the silence.

"That was pretty good, but can you play anything cool, like rock and roll?"

Bora flashed her a quick smile before she brought her hands down and pounded out a loud riff. Right there a friendship was born. BoA, wild, fierce, scholarship pupil and seamstress's daughter from the wrong side of the neighborhood, and Jin Bora, beloved daughter of one of the city's best and most prominent printers and artists, known for her manners and for being a piano prodigy, weren't the likeliest of best friends, but there it was.

Bora's and Junsu's families had known each other for years, since both had come to the country together decades ago. They met Tablo in music class, when he transferred in later that year. His parents had come to the country for high-level jobs as electronic engineers at the local plant.

The four of them quickly became inseparable. After school, they would hide off in a corner and make songs, their own secret language of improvisation, low trills of sadness and wild skirls that signaled joy. Tablo, always clever, translated those notes into signs and text messages they passed back and forth under the noses of their classmates and teachers, always one step ahead.

As they got older, the band was just the logical next step. Tablo, their linguist and border crosser, peppered their lyrics with snippets of New Anglish and sounds from all of his travels and homes. Bora used her family's print shop to make their flyers, ignoring both the expense and her parents' unsubtle comments about falling in with rough girls like BoA and newcomers like Tablo.

Head in the clouds and music in her ears, she and BoA made their own wild dance together -- BoA's voice, bigger than her body and older than her years, underpinned by Bora's speaking piano. Junsu added his voice when he wasn't hanging out with his other boys; he was the one who created their moves and their lyrics. He was popular and athletic, and made girls and not few of the guys swoon. But BoA was their front woman. She was the organizer, the charismatic one, the voice they all listened to. None of them could have guessed that the group they were building and their music would take them beyond small stages and onto the world's stage to topple a regime.

 

> "The rise of the State was unanticipated, and from this vantage point in history, it is difficult to convey its total control at that time. After a period of relative liberalism, the June 25th bombings (now attributed to a splinter faction of the Front) ushered in a more authoritarian government, which amended the constitution to give the authorities sweeping new powers during a state of emergency and instituted martial law. The State also used the incidents as an opportunity to pass a series of repressive measures, known as the Laws of Association, only applicable in the early years to suspected Front members and associates, foreign nationals and immigrants. The Laws were ostensibly to protect the population from the terrorist threat, and allowed the State to pull in any suspected radicals without due process. However, in practice, even those who had been born in the country, as the Anyband Four had been, were looked upon with suspicion and could be taken in by the State police at any moment. Eventually the Laws of Association were expanded to the general population and used to regulate travel, movement within the city, and finally all speech and conduct. The Laws were abbreviated into the popular mantra "No Talk. No Play. No Love." Silence became the unofficial rule of law (even indoors, people were known to lower their voices and stay away from windows). All public assembly (including sporting events, cultural exhibitions, and concerts) were outlawed. Telecommunications, in particular, were seen as a dangerous channel for students, radicals, and dissidents of all stripes, and the government suspended them except for the State broadcast. The State had total control over all information—only approved State council members had access to the Internet; all phone lines were monitored; mobiles and TVs sold in the country were locked to the State broadcast frequencies; all other signals were jammed. An atmosphere of oppressive stillness reigned. Given the regime's campaign of terror, fractures appeared along old lines. Family, friends, lovers, neighbors, and strangers turned each other in for possible terrorist activity, even the appearance of terrorist sympathies, or speaking out against the government, whether out of genuine patriotic fervor, as insurance for their own safety, or as payment for slights and antipathies both imagined and real. Emotion, love itself, became a weapon of the State."—From _A Brief History of the Anyband Four_

 

"What's so important that I had to break curfew and nearly get caught by not one, but two different guards?" Junsu groused after he'd shut the door of their soundproofed practice room in Tablo's basement. He turned and surveyed the others: BoA standing in the center of the makeshift den with her fists clenched; Tablo straddling a chair to the side, glaring at her; and Bora perched on the old, ratty sofa they'd dragged down here to have a place to crash. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Tell this crazy person that there's no way we can take on the whole State," Tablo said, pointing an accusing finger at BoA. Junsu ignored the dramatics; it was their usual way of communicating. He wished they'd just get over it and admit they wanted each other already. But the content brought him up short.

"Take on the State?" He glanced at Bora on the couch, who was as still as he'd ever seen her.

"So you're just going to roll over and play dead until they take away your permanent residency, or reeducate us all, or we die?" BoA sneered, and began pacing again. "You know it's coming! First, it was the identicards and the checkpoints, and who gets hassled the most, huh? It doesn't matter who you are or how long you've been here," she said, waving a hand at Junsu and Bora. "They just take one look at your face and suddenly they have to look at your identicard. Why has half my neighborhood—Carlinhos, Fela's family, Mr. Ozawa, the Aziz brothers, my mother"--her voice broke and steadied--"suddenly been shifted over to the factory zone? 'Retasking for national interests' my ass. And now this. I can't take it anymore."

"Now what?" Junsu looked at each of them in the silence that followed, but it was Bora who spoke up, finally, from the couch. "They've outlawed public assembly, not just during curfew, but any time. No sports, no theatre, no music. There are now restrictions on anything but the 'patriotic' State songs. It's automatic detention if anyone but State-approved musicians are found with instruments."

"What?" Junsu felt like someone had cut his legs off. He stumbled over to the sofa and collapsed besides Bora.

"See? Not so crazy now, am I?" BoA said, an edge of softness in her voice and the same devastation in her eyes.

Tablo rested his head on the back of the chair and mumbled, "They're saying that it's too easy for subversive elements to gather in public assemblies, that it makes the population an easier target for terrorist attacks."

"When really they just want to control everything, and crush the spirit out of anyone who's got any left. I won't stand for it. Music's the only thing worth anything, the only thing I have left. I won't let them take that away too." BoA stopped and collapsed by Tablo's chair, putting her head on her knees. He tentatively rested a hand on her head, and the others lapsed into silence for a long moment, their agreement too large and unconditional to need voicing.

"So what do you want us to do?" Junsu asked. "They have everything and everyone locked down by the Laws. People are scared to breathe funny. What can we do? We're just university students--if you can call reeducation visits to the cultural centers university now. The only reason we aren't in grey permanently is because they think we're weird useless university kids."

"I say we join the Resistance." BoA lifted her chin and threw down the statement like a gauntlet. The others looked around, at each other and the walls, as if someone might hear her even in this soundproofed room.

Junsu shook himself. "The Resistance is a myth."

"That's what the State wants you to think. Just because they say it on the broadcasts doesn't make it true."

"Even if they exist, how would we get in touch with them? It's not like we can just walk to the nearest headquarters and sign up," Tablo, ever practical, said.

"I think I may have a way." All heads swung in surprise to Bora. "At my father's print shop, there's a man who comes in to get flyers made every now and then. In the design, I recognized an old cipher. It's from ancient times, and the only way I recognized it was because I'd been studying old glyph techniques for printing in the archives, before school shut down. No one else would be likely to notice it."

"Could you write him a message?" BoA asked, hope dawning on her face. Bora nodded and Tablo blew out a breath.

"You know if we do this, there's no coming back. We might have to go underground."

"Like there's so much for us here. We're breaking laws right now, being out after curfew. What's a few more? And we'll go underground all right. If they're going to treat us like rats in a maze, they shouldn't be surprised when we gnaw away at the foundations." BoA bared her teeth in a cutting smile, and despite himself, Junsu felt a spark of hope.

 

> "Though the Anyband Four were not the first resistance cell in the city, they were one of the most effective. The childhood games that had given them a language to avoid teachers, send secret messages to one another, and keep in touch stood them in good stead on a larger stage. Their long association, and their communication and musical skills made them an extraordinarily effective guerrilla team. With the equipment taken from her family's shop and her knowledge of ciphers, Jin Bora created the TPL logo and used the blocky design of the posters to code messages to the rest of the resistance members. Though the guards would take them down, when placed properly even for short periods of time, the coded posters were used to signal underground resistance members about upcoming actions and meeting places. For more lasting messages, both Bora and Junsu, with whom she shared her artistic techniques, were known to use spray tags. Junsu and Tablo were also instrumental in creating the messages that went out, both in art and in lyric form. Tablo, their electronic engineering genius, played an important role in jail-breaking the Anyband phones used to send messages in the final days of the State, and was a key player in the final plan to hack the State network and interrupt their control, first only for seconds and finally then for good, signaling the downfall of the State. And it is fitting that the first voice the people should hear was BoA's, leader of the resistance cell and heroine of so many actions, calling on the citizens to stand up in peaceful revolution, telling them of the support and strength of the resistance, and reminding them of their dreams and the joy of being alive." —From _A Brief History of the Anyband Four_

 

"Okay, let's go over it again," BoA rapped out, hre rapid twisting of her multicolored hair around her one painted fingernail the only sign of her nervousness.

Tablo launched into the briefing, as he had done so many times before, no matter that this might be the last one. "Once we hear from the third cell that they have control over the far neighborhoods, then we put the plan into action. I'll get the last of the instruments we need from the cultural reeducation center, go to HQ to set up recording, and upload and confirm to Central that we're a go. Bora and Junsu will post the last messages to the underground, and you'll go ahead to the signal point to set up. Then we all go to our places, and wait until thirteen hundred thirty when we start broadcasting. Remember, less than a minute or they'll triangulate our signals. I think the distance between us should give them the runaround for long enough. If that goes well," swallowing the implied _if none of us are captured or killed when they try to track us_ "then we'll start Stage 2."

"Are you sure you can get the trojan uploaded with the song, and hack into the network?"

Tablo nodded. "Yeah, I should be able to hack both the main network and the remote mobiles and disrupt the subliminals long enough for us to get in place. That should draw the guards. I'll meet you at the rendezvous afterward. And then, we send the main signal."

The death knell of the State in 4/4 time. It's the song of their hearts, his heart, all the concentrated hope and dreams and love held in these last years of running and hiding and plotting. And now it comes to an end.

They're silent for a moment, taking in the enormity of what they are about to do. Tears shine in Bora's eyes and she grabs Junsu's hand and squeezes. Junsu links hands with Tablo, and he holds out a hand to BoA, who's already clutching Bora's hand as if she'll never let go. He cradles the slightly damp warmth of her palm in his, gentle and strong, as if the press of their skin can transmit everything he wants to say to her.

"Anywhere you go, I'll be there," BoA says, voice thick with tears. "Anywhere you go, I'll be there," they all repeat. And it's true. All their lives, whether they succeed or not, they will be there for each other.

They hold for a minute longer and then BoA disengages, wipes away the tears rolling down her face, and says, "OK, let's go." They turn toward the door, but Tablo holds on for a moment longer and she turns to look at him, giving Junsu and Bora a moment they are tactfully pretending not to see.

"You know that song, that promise, is mine to you, no matter what happens. I promise I'll always be there for you. I got into this because I couldn't let you do it alone, and you did it. We're nearly there."

BoA's mouth twists in a lopsided smile. "Tablo, you know I love you, and you've always been there for me—" Tablo presses a gentle finger to her lips.

"And I know you're going to the fifth garrison if this succeeds to lead the next offensive. It's what you're meant to do, and I'd never hold you back. I've always known you were meant for great things."

BoA's face is as soft as he's ever seen it. "If this were a different world. . ."

"But it's not. But in any universe, I'll be there." He gently presses his lips to hers and they part.

"OK, people, let's rock this!" she says.

And they do.

 

> "The final days of the State and the aftermath of the revolution are a story for another day. The further exploits of BoA in liberating other cities from State control, and her eventual influence on the musical tradition of not only one country, but three continents, would take another volume at least. Other biographers have amply covered Tablo's foundation of the Word, and Junsu and Bora's ascension into the ranks of the new government. We will leave our tale of the Anyband Four on that joyous day on the rooftop, singing out the victory of the TPL Resistance, and the return of joy and hope to the country. Thanks to the Four, we can talk, play and love as we wish."—From _A Brief History of the Anyband Four_


End file.
